A welcome on the hillside......V Swansea at home, Sat 10-11-18 , 3-o'clock.

[nicholaldo]

As it happens, it appears that we were in for McBurnie.

[nicholaldo]

But anyway - I do think we are better than this run suggests. But we are a bottom 6 team in this division and losing our better players for periods means we struggle even in that mini league.

This.

[Harry Genshaw]

We wanted to sign Celina and McBurnie (he was at Bradford with Parky on loan once) and both were way out of our price bracket.

Are you seriously saying that signing league one/2 late 20 somethings who've never done it at this level before is the equivalent to the quality Swansea have available? If so I think you've lost the plot somewhat.

But anyway - I do think we are better than this run suggests. But we are a bottom 6 team in this division and losing our better players for periods means we struggle even in that mini league. I hope we turn it round - I do think the notion that a change of manager suddenly means Magennis and Buckley etc become much better than they are a little ludicrous.

Frankly I think we're a big physical team and need to go back to focussing on that threat rather than ineffectively trying to play football. Because this isn't working. At all.

Lets go back to being physical, organised, strong on set pieces rather than trying to be a footballing team that isn't quite good enough at it to get consistent (or any) results.

Celina and McBurnie were way out of our price bracket? Do you know that, or is that just hyperbole?

Iirc we had an agreement with City but Celina chose Ipswich over us. I dont recall McBurnie being mentioned by anyone until after he'd driven us mad at oakwell last year. Had we bid for him in August 2017 & big spending Barnsley blew us out of the water?

I don't disagree that our rather lame attempts to play football isn't working but being strong on set pieces isn't a realistic alternative!

Much as I admire Parky you can't bemoan what he's working with and then name two players that were his signings. One of whom we paid cash for!

We lost out on Celina because we weren't able to stretch to the fee that City wanted, and we wouldn't have needed to bid for McBunie because at that stage we still had Madine. Celina then went on to command a fee of at least three times our total transfer spending in the summer just gone.

You sure on that? I recall Parky saying he was no longer pursuing him. I don't recall owt about cash. We didn't need McBurnie because we had the criminally under used ALF

[nicholaldo]

We wanted to sign Celina and McBurnie (he was at Bradford with Parky on loan once) and both were way out of our price bracket.

Are you seriously saying that signing league one/2 late 20 somethings who've never done it at this level before is the equivalent to the quality Swansea have available? If so I think you've lost the plot somewhat.

But anyway - I do think we are better than this run suggests. But we are a bottom 6 team in this division and losing our better players for periods means we struggle even in that mini league. I hope we turn it round - I do think the notion that a change of manager suddenly means Magennis and Buckley etc become much better than they are a little ludicrous.

Frankly I think we're a big physical team and need to go back to focussing on that threat rather than ineffectively trying to play football. Because this isn't working. At all.

Lets go back to being physical, organised, strong on set pieces rather than trying to be a footballing team that isn't quite good enough at it to get consistent (or any) results.

Celina and McBurnie were way out of our price bracket? Do you know that, or is that just hyperbole?

Iirc we had an agreement with City but Celina chose Ipswich over us. I dont recall McBurnie being mentioned by anyone until after he'd driven us mad at oakwell last year. Had we bid for him in August 2017 & big spending Barnsley blew us out of the water?

I don't disagree that our rather lame attempts to play football isn't working but being strong on set pieces isn't a realistic alternative!

Much as I admire Parky you can't bemoan what he's working with and then name two players that were his signings. One of whom we paid cash for!

We lost out on Celina because we weren't able to stretch to the fee that City wanted, and we wouldn't have needed to bid for McBunie because at that stage we still had Madine. Celina then went on to command a fee of at least three times our total transfer spending in the summer just gone.

You sure on that? I recall Parky saying he was no longer pursuing him. I don't recall owt about cash. We didn't need McBurnie because we had the criminally under used ALF

Per the BN:

“Some you win, some you lose,” said Parkinson, with a rather rueful grin. “We met him and he was going to come to us because the location suited him but at the time, the situation we were in, we couldn’t get the deal over the line and Ipswich took him.

“He’s a good lad and Tim (Breacker) watched him a lot at FC Twente on loan the previous season. We liked him a lot but purely with the financial situation we were in, we couldn’t meet the money City were asking for according to how many games he played.

McBurnie is a target man. le Fondre isn't.

[Jugs]

But anyway - I do think we are better than this run suggests. But we are a bottom 6 team in this division and losing our better players for periods means we struggle even in that mini league.

This.

Fans adjust our prospects according to the most recent performances. If I recall, even BWFCInsane had us pegged as playoff candidates after the 2-2 at Preston. The psychology of a football fan is that a good run makes even the most realistic of fans dream, while a bad run makes us want to kill ourselves.

Now that we're in the midst of an abysmal run, we're all in agreement that we're relegation candidates at best.

We can do better - clearly we can, because we were doing better. Confidence and momentum are funny things. If PP and the team can nail both, we could still climb.

I'm not sure we will, though, because we lack a goalscorer. Worse still, PP seems confused about what to do next. With each defeat, his confusion and desperation gets worse. I think those two things are might be what ultimately kills us this season ...

HOWEVER, I personally live in the hope that Ireland will return fit and ready to help us do good things.

[nicholaldo]

But anyway - I do think we are better than this run suggests. But we are a bottom 6 team in this division and losing our better players for periods means we struggle even in that mini league.

This.

Fans adjust our prospects according to the most recent performances. If I recall, even BWFCInsane had us pegged as playoff candidates after the 2-2 at Preston. The psychology of a football fan is that a good run makes even the most realistic of fans dream, while a bad run makes us want to kill ourselves.

Now that we're in the midst of an abysmal run, we're all in agreement that we're relegation candidates at best.

We can do better - clearly we can, because we were doing better. Confidence and momentum are funny things. If PP and the team can nail both, we could still climb.

I'm not sure we will, though, because we lack a goalscorer. Worse still, PP seems confused about what to do next. With each defeat, his confusion and desperation gets worse. I think those two things are might be what ultimately kills us this season ...

HOWEVER, I personally live in the hope that Ireland will return fit and ready to help us do good things.

We also adjust our expectations the more evidence we have, and it's become increasingly clear that our early season form was somewhat illusory. Or perhaps more accurately, it's become increasingly clear that Ameobi is pretty much everything.

But anyway, I can only speak for myself, and I've always had us down as a bottom-eight/bottom-six team. That won't change until we attract a new owner or at least some investment. We probably have just enough about us, when Ameobi's fit, to fashion a starting eleven that's fairly competitive against most. That's as far as it goes (in my opinion).

I share your hope that Ireland might turn out to be a catalyst by the way. The odds of him dragging himself off the treatment table before his contract runs out, though, are getting longer and longer.

[TANGODANCER]

So talking purely in fairyland ,a place a lot of folk disbelieve in ( not me, I live there but we call it Farnworth ) yet are happy to think it may all be true one day) if we had all our players fit and ready, effectively, we have a squad that some clubs might even seriously envy. With Sammi, Ireland, Wildschutt etc, fit and ready and in addition to a good keeper and decent sounding defence and three strikers that might only need a goal to fire them off, and with a bit of luck, we could soon turn things round. My main fear is that if we do and some of our lads come to form, K.A may well be looking to jingle the tills by selling some of them off in January. With loans and short deals we're already sailing a ship with a tar-paper hull. We really do need to all shout "No shxt Sherlock" in thinking we need a saviour. Much can change with a couple of wins. Next Saturday against Millwall would be a good time to start.

[Harry Genshaw]

McBurnie is a target man. le Fondre isn't.

Fair play on Celina, not how I remembered it at all.

I must take issue with this though. Funnily enough I thought McBurnie had filled out a little last week but at Barnsley last season he looked like a recovering heroin addict. He was about 6 stone wet through!

He's a talented forward player but a target man? I'm glad we didn't get him if the plan was to lump the ball up top like he was Madine!

[nicholaldo]

So talking purely in fairyland ,a place a lot of folk disbelieve in ( not me, I live there but we call it Farnworth ) yet are happy to think it may all be true one day) if we had all our players fit and ready, effectively, we have a squad that some clubs might even seriously envy

No, just that we might have a starting eleven that's fairly competitive against most, but certainly not all. The vast majority would still have the best of it.

My main fear is that if we do and some of our lads come to form, K.A may well be looking to jingle the tills by selling some of them off in January.

I think it's practically guaranteed that if we receive any decent offers for any of our players they'll be off pretty sharpish.

[nicholaldo]

McBurnie is a target man. le Fondre isn't.

Fair play on Celina, not how I remembered it at all.

I must take issue with this though. Funnily enough I thought McBurnie had filled out a little last week but at Barnsley last season he looked like a recovering heroin addict. He was about 6 stone wet through!

He's a talented forward player but a target man? I'm glad we didn't get him if the plan was to lump the ball up top like he was Madine!

He has many more strings to his bow than target men like Madine and Magennis ever will, but nevertheless, he's good at being the main focal point up front and is capable of holding off players and bringing others into it in a way that le Fondre simply isn't.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

McBurnie is a target man. le Fondre isn't.

Fair play on Celina, not how I remembered it at all.

I must take issue with this though. Funnily enough I thought McBurnie had filled out a little last week but at Barnsley last season he looked like a recovering heroin addict. He was about 6 stone wet through!

He's a talented forward player but a target man? I'm glad we didn't get him if the plan was to lump the ball up top like he was Madine!

He has many more strings to his bow than target men like Madine and Magennis ever will, but nevertheless, he's good at being the main focal point up front and is capable of holding off players and bringing others into it in a way that le Fondre simply isn't.

Many more strings??? - what precisely does that mean? He's a football player. One who isn't regarded as the next Pele. A football player who most would regard as adequate at best.

[nicholaldo]

McBurnie is a target man. le Fondre isn't.

Fair play on Celina, not how I remembered it at all.

I must take issue with this though. Funnily enough I thought McBurnie had filled out a little last week but at Barnsley last season he looked like a recovering heroin addict. He was about 6 stone wet through!

He's a talented forward player but a target man? I'm glad we didn't get him if the plan was to lump the ball up top like he was Madine!

He has many more strings to his bow than target men like Madine and Magennis ever will, but nevertheless, he's good at being the main focal point up front and is capable of holding off players and bringing others into it in a way that le Fondre simply isn't.

Many more strings??? - what precisely does that mean? He's a football player. One who isn't regarded as the next Pele. A football player who most would regard as adequate at best.

It's a metaphor used to mean he can do more things on the football pitch than the two players mentioned can. I thought that would have been fairly obvious.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

McBurnie is a target man. le Fondre isn't.

Fair play on Celina, not how I remembered it at all.

I must take issue with this though. Funnily enough I thought McBurnie had filled out a little last week but at Barnsley last season he looked like a recovering heroin addict. He was about 6 stone wet through!

He's a talented forward player but a target man? I'm glad we didn't get him if the plan was to lump the ball up top like he was Madine!

He has many more strings to his bow than target men like Madine and Magennis ever will, but nevertheless, he's good at being the main focal point up front and is capable of holding off players and bringing others into it in a way that le Fondre simply isn't.

Many more strings??? - what precisely does that mean? He's a football player. One who isn't regarded as the next Pele. A football player who most would regard as adequate at best.

It's a metaphor used to mean he can do more things on the football pitch than the two players mentioned can. I thought that would have been fairly obvious.

A metaphor: A figure of speech in which a word (or phrase) is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable... You're totally right there then.

He has no more strings to his bow than I have. Magennis and Madine can do the same shite routine as him.

[nicholaldo]

McBurnie is a target man. le Fondre isn't.

Fair play on Celina, not how I remembered it at all.

I must take issue with this though. Funnily enough I thought McBurnie had filled out a little last week but at Barnsley last season he looked like a recovering heroin addict. He was about 6 stone wet through!

He's a talented forward player but a target man? I'm glad we didn't get him if the plan was to lump the ball up top like he was Madine!

He has many more strings to his bow than target men like Madine and Magennis ever will, but nevertheless, he's good at being the main focal point up front and is capable of holding off players and bringing others into it in a way that le Fondre simply isn't.

Many more strings??? - what precisely does that mean? He's a football player. One who isn't regarded as the next Pele. A football player who most would regard as adequate at best.

It's a metaphor used to mean he can do more things on the football pitch than the two players mentioned can. I thought that would have been fairly obvious.

A metaphor: A figure of speech in which a word (or phrase) is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable... You're totally right there then.

He has no more strings to his bow than I have. Magennis and Madine can do the same shite routine as him.

F*cking hell. Of all the things to pick a row about...

McBurnie is better than both, and can play in more than one role. I don’t know why this is really up for debate.

[Prufrock]

McBurnie is a v good player.

I'd be happy if any of the feck* played well enough for someone to buy them.

Sammy aside, he has to play 35 games this season or we're down.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

McBurnie is a target man. le Fondre isn't.

Fair play on Celina, not how I remembered it at all.

I must take issue with this though. Funnily enough I thought McBurnie had filled out a little last week but at Barnsley last season he looked like a recovering heroin addict. He was about 6 stone wet through!

He's a talented forward player but a target man? I'm glad we didn't get him if the plan was to lump the ball up top like he was Madine!

He has many more strings to his bow than target men like Madine and Magennis ever will, but nevertheless, he's good at being the main focal point up front and is capable of holding off players and bringing others into it in a way that le Fondre simply isn't.

Many more strings??? - what precisely does that mean? He's a football player. One who isn't regarded as the next Pele. A football player who most would regard as adequate at best.

It's a metaphor used to mean he can do more things on the football pitch than the two players mentioned can. I thought that would have been fairly obvious.

A metaphor: A figure of speech in which a word (or phrase) is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable... You're totally right there then.

He has no more strings to his bow than I have. Magennis and Madine can do the same shite routine as him.

F*cking hell. Of all the things to pick a row about...

McBurnie is better than both, and can play in more than one role. I don’t know why this is really up for debate.

Three things.
1. It's hardly a row. I'm disagreeing with you.
2. You're ascertation that McBurnie is better than Madine and Magennis is your opinion (see 1 above).
3. You really don't need to use metaphors when metaphorically speaking the metaphor fails to hit the target (no matter how many strings your bow may possess)...

[nicholaldo]

McBurnie is a target man. le Fondre isn't.

Fair play on Celina, not how I remembered it at all.

I must take issue with this though. Funnily enough I thought McBurnie had filled out a little last week but at Barnsley last season he looked like a recovering heroin addict. He was about 6 stone wet through!

He's a talented forward player but a target man? I'm glad we didn't get him if the plan was to lump the ball up top like he was Madine!

He has many more strings to his bow than target men like Madine and Magennis ever will, but nevertheless, he's good at being the main focal point up front and is capable of holding off players and bringing others into it in a way that le Fondre simply isn't.

Many more strings??? - what precisely does that mean? He's a football player. One who isn't regarded as the next Pele. A football player who most would regard as adequate at best.

It's a metaphor used to mean he can do more things on the football pitch than the two players mentioned can. I thought that would have been fairly obvious.

A metaphor: A figure of speech in which a word (or phrase) is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable... You're totally right there then.

He has no more strings to his bow than I have. Magennis and Madine can do the same shite routine as him.

F*cking hell. Of all the things to pick a row about...

McBurnie is better than both, and can play in more than one role. I don’t know why this is really up for debate.

Three things.
1. It's hardly a row. I'm disagreeing with you.
2. You're ascertation that McBurnie is better than Madine and Magennis is your opinion (see 1 above).
3. You really don't need to use metaphors when metaphorically speaking the metaphor fails to hit the target (no matter how many strings your bow may possess)...

1. I think I can be forgiven for thinking it was, you do little else. If it genuinely wasn't though, then fair enough.

2. Yes, it's only my opinion that McBurnie is the better player, and I'm not denying you yours, but I'd be interested to know on what basis you think Madine and Magennis are just as good?

3. "have a second string to your bow: have an alternative resource that you can make use of if the first one fails."

"Many more strings" might have been an exaggeration, but if McBurnie isn't having much success winning aerial battles and involving others as a target man, he's good enough to try and beat a man with the ball at his feet, or move out wide and play as a winger. Neither Magennis nor Madine have that ability. In that sense, McBurnie has more than one string to his bow. Metaphor, idiom, whatever, it's good enough for me.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

McBurnie is a target man. le Fondre isn't.

Fair play on Celina, not how I remembered it at all.

I must take issue with this though. Funnily enough I thought McBurnie had filled out a little last week but at Barnsley last season he looked like a recovering heroin addict. He was about 6 stone wet through!

He's a talented forward player but a target man? I'm glad we didn't get him if the plan was to lump the ball up top like he was Madine!

He has many more strings to his bow than target men like Madine and Magennis ever will, but nevertheless, he's good at being the main focal point up front and is capable of holding off players and bringing others into it in a way that le Fondre simply isn't.

Many more strings??? - what precisely does that mean? He's a football player. One who isn't regarded as the next Pele. A football player who most would regard as adequate at best.

It's a metaphor used to mean he can do more things on the football pitch than the two players mentioned can. I thought that would have been fairly obvious.

A metaphor: A figure of speech in which a word (or phrase) is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable... You're totally right there then.

He has no more strings to his bow than I have. Magennis and Madine can do the same shite routine as him.

F*cking hell. Of all the things to pick a row about...

McBurnie is better than both, and can play in more than one role. I don’t know why this is really up for debate.

Three things.
1. It's hardly a row. I'm disagreeing with you.
2. You're ascertation that McBurnie is better than Madine and Magennis is your opinion (see 1 above).
3. You really don't need to use metaphors when metaphorically speaking the metaphor fails to hit the target (no matter how many strings your bow may possess)...

1. I think I can be forgiven for thinking it was, you do little else. If it genuinely wasn't though, then fair enough.

2. Yes, it's only my opinion that McBurnie is the better player, and I'm not denying you yours, but I'd be interested to know on what basis you think Madine and Magennis are just as good?

3. "have a second string to your bow: have an alternative resource that you can make use of if the first one fails."

"Many more strings" might have been an exaggeration, but if McBurnie isn't having much success winning aerial battles and involving others as a target man, he's good enough to try and beat a man with the ball at his feet, or move out wide and play as a winger. Neither Magennis nor Madine have that ability. In that sense, McBurnie has more than one string to his bow. Metaphor, idiom, whatever, it's good enough for me.

1. I do plenty of lots of things. I'd suggest that your perception of what I do is filtered according to your values.
2. I think Madine and Magennis are 'just as good' because what they do do is better than what McBurnie attempts to. When you say for example that he is good enough to try and beat a man with the ball at his feet, I'd emphasise 'try'. A really good footballer would beat, not try to. (That's not to say that Madine or Magennis would try that, because they realise their limitations. When Magennis/Madine go in to intercept a forward high ball they do so with the intention it will succeed. To me everything McBurnie does appears laden with the body language of somebody already preparing to change to plan b, he seems to lack commitment about what he is going to do, he hesitates a lot probably because he overthinks what is best course of action at each moment the ball is heading into his area of influence. Technically speaking from a theoretical test point of view he would no doubt beat Magennis and Madine, but if you really analysed the results of said test then in three out of say ten subjects, Magennis and Madine would score a 8, with seven 2s. McBurnie would score straight 4s all the way through. In my opinion).
3. I think we can park the metaphor argument: the bay is full, I've run out of money, and the fxckin meter will only take Euros...

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

From my viewpoint - which included the away end at Oakwell - McBurnie is the sort of hard-working yet dangerous pain in the arse that fans tend to love on their side and hate on the other. The stats show that he scored nine goals in 17 appearances for a relegation-threatened team who'd won one of the previous 14 league games before his arrival.

Moreover, those nine goals made a difference: only two of them (a deficit-cutter at promotion-chasing Cardiff and a second at home to play-off-chasing Brentford) didn't make a material difference to the result: four of them turned losses into draws (including the late leveller against us), a double at Birmingham won a six-pointer and his equaliser in the home derby with Blades helped them on the way to a win, so his goals got them eight points without which they'd have been down way before Sunderland.

According to Transfermarkt, five of his appearances came at centre-forward and 12 as a winger. I can understand why his beanpole frame doesn't inspire fear and I wouldn't say he's as good a target man as Madine or Magennis, but what he does have is more speed on the turn so if the ball went over the top he'd be more of a threat. He's also very hard to knock off the ball when running toward goal, so in a 4-2-3-1 he could play in either of the wide roles and arguably pick up knockdowns as the 10, too.

I'm always aware that as football fans we tend to undervalue our own players and overfear the opposition; I'm told it's an effect of the availability heuristic wherein we find it easier remember the obvious and painful things - like, say, an injury-time equaliser against us. Others may remember things differently. But I would say that if we'd managed to borrow McBurnie in summer I'd have been delighted.

heuristic.jpg (38.21 KiB) Viewed 2840 times

[Lost Leopard Spot]

From my viewpoint - which included the away end at Oakwell - McBurnie is the sort of hard-working yet dangerous pain in the arse that fans tend to love on their side and hate on the other. The stats show that he scored nine goals in 17 appearances for a relegation-threatened team who'd won one of the previous 14 league games before his arrival.

Moreover, those nine goals made a difference: only two of them (a deficit-cutter at promotion-chasing Cardiff and a second at home to play-off-chasing Brentford) didn't make a material difference to the result: four of them turned losses into draws (including the late leveller against us), a double at Birmingham won a six-pointer and his equaliser in the home derby with Blades helped them on the way to a win, so his goals got them eight points without which they'd have been down way before Sunderland.

According to Transfermarkt, five of his appearances came at centre-forward and 12 as a winger. I can understand why his beanpole frame doesn't inspire fear and I wouldn't say he's as good a target man as Madine or Magennis, but what he does have is more speed on the turn so if the ball went over the top he'd be more of a threat. He's also very hard to knock off the ball when running toward goal, so in a 4-2-3-1 he could play in either of the wide roles and arguably pick up knockdowns as the 10, too.

I'm always aware that as football fans we tend to undervalue our own players and overfear the opposition; I'm told it's an effect of the availability heuristic wherein we find it easier remember the obvious and painful things - like, say, an injury-time equaliser against us. Others may remember things differently. But I would say that if we'd managed to borrow McBurnie in summer I'd have been delighted.


heuristic.jpg

Heuristics are an evolutionary tool. They are there for a purpose* so that the species can prosper.
If football lacked heuristics it would lack a fan base.

*(Purpose defined here not as a designed outcome, but a reason why something exists. Dawkins rather than God).